Tough and resourceful Tala will be 13 soon, and no one will tell her what to do. On one fateful day in the forest, however, she has to find her endangered father and protect her young brother from a trio of murderous poachers. All the while, she and her brother may have to face the forest's legendary keepers - the deceptively playful characters known as the Stone People, and a giant, black bird know and feared as Culloo. Murielle Cyr's debut novella for Pemmican is a young Adult story with a difference, as a pre-teen girl's growing courage and ingenuity - bolstered by faith in her people's traditions - play against old magic and modern human greed and brutality.